A casual search of Google will turn up a plethora of emini trading courses which promise to revolutionize your trading and turn you into a literal trading machine. Without naming specific courses, some of the claims are so outlandish as to be comical…and that is unfortunate.

I’ve never purchased an emini trading course, as I was trained by professional traders, and my chosen profession was institutional bond trading. However, I have had a chance to look at dozens of the courses offered and most are not sufficient to qualify the purchaser as a competent trader. In my opinion, some are outright scams, and provide little more than boilerplate-type information about the nature of trading and a few tips on how you might trade this contract or that contract.

Other courses provide a very specific methodology for trading. If you have read any of my past articles you will find that I firmly believe that there are no foolproof methodologies for trading emini contracts. With that being said, I feel it would be foolish to invest in a trading course that limits itself to a specific trading style or method. In my opinion, the vast majority of the courses being offered are of little value if you are serious about learning how to trade.

Before I go any further, though, I do know of several courses that are superior in teaching proper trading technique, but these courses are far and few between, The point is, there are some good teachers out there among a sea of mediocre trading educators.

Amidst the claims of 90% accuracy in trading results, are some of the most outrageous prices imaginable. When doing research for this article, I was absolutely stunned at the prices some of these educators are willing to charge their students. Sticker shock was certainly the order of the day as I reviewed the prices of some of the courses. More shocking to me is the fact that people are apparently willing to pay$5,000 to $10,000 to perfect strangers in the hope that they will strike it rich in the futures markets.

I think the most important point I can make to someone contemplating trading as a career is this: Learning to trade is a process and most traders consider the pursuit of trading as a life-long learning experience. I am a student of trading and always will be, regardless of the success I achieve. The day I decide to quit learning is the day my trading skills will begin the process of erosion.

My recommendation is to steer clear from the vast majority of these emini courses and head to your local library and begin a study of the fundamentals of the market and how it functions. Once you have a firm grasp of the basics, joining a reasonably priced trading room might be a nice start. There are several excellent trading rooms out there that do a wonderful job of steering you into profitable trades while explaining the rationale for picking that particular trade. Traders need knowledge and experience.

I also suggest that novice traders get a demo account and paper trade for an extended period of time. When you can consistently string together five days of profitable trading you are ready for live trading.

Start small. Just one contract.

Keep studying and learning as you begin your trading career, make learning the functioning of the markets a passion. Many emini courses claim their techniques work across a wide spectrum of emini contracts. I disagree.

Learn to trade one contract, say the YM contract with competence before moving into new territory. Every contract has a distinct personality and I suggest you slowly acquaint yourself with each contract type before trying to tackle live trading in that contract.

There are no foolproof systems to trade futures contracts. Just knowledge, experience and self-discipline, and these are skills to be acquired gradually. Give yourself time and space to learn before jumping headlong into trading after buying the latest and greatest trading course.

Good luck in your trading endeavors. Be a student forever.

I write mainly about financial topics, specifically daytrading the emini contract, and many of my more technical techniques can be found at my blog, The Fractal Futures Trader I also write an ongoing commentary, which is a bit more opinionated, at The Fractal Traders Commentary I encourage all to read the blogs and learn how to trade, as you can add $500-1000 dollars a day to your pocket book. Best of trading to all.